Chapter Text
Kenneth Burke watched as the last of this year’s first years were sorted. The girl who was apparently under the protection of the entire Slytherin House had been sorted in Ravenclaw, and he had watched carefully for the reactions of her fellow housemates.
He was not impressed.
Sure, there was always one or two people who weren’t readily accepted by some in their house, Potter being an example that came immediately to mind. Of course that had been last year, and now she was practically their mascot.
But the looks of pure loathing he had seen on some of the Ravenclaws’ faces had left little doubt in his mind that Potter’s newest friend was unlikely to receive a warm welcome all around. And since Slytherin had committed themselves to being nice to her, which in Slytherin meant making sure no one else got away with acting otherwise, he was confident this was somehow going to take up more of his time than he would have cared for.
Kenneth refrained from rolling his eyes at the fifth year prefects’ awkward attempt to explain to the first year Slytherins why they needed to be nice to a particular Ravenclaw. The first years were questioning the reasons for the order, and the fifth year prefects had few options of explanations to give other than “the sixth years us told us to,” which wasn’t something they were likely to admit, or “we’re all scared a second year is going to get mad and raise an army of Hufflepuffs ultimately bringing Hogwarts to its knees,” which would be impossible to say in any way that would have them looking like the authority figures they were trying so desperately to be.
He was sure he hadn’t been that bad last year.
As the newest prefects unsuccessfully tried to turn the conversation away from the topic of Luna Lovegood, Kenneth decided some intervention would be necessary. Eventually. It was rather entertaining to watch the prefects fail so spectacularly, although they would obviously have to get better before they embarrassed Slytherin in any way. Couldn’t have that, after all.
On the other hand, that one little brat that kept voicing his objections was getting on Kenneth’s nerves.
“I understand you have some… concerns about Slytherin’s interest in Miss Lovegood, Mr….”
“Poinston, Anthony Poinston,” the brat said haughtily. Great. Another one of those.
“I see. And you object to these instructions because…”
Kenneth’s patience lasted for precisely seventeen seconds before he gave up. By the time he was done the first years knew everything there was to know about Ivy Potter, her impressive wand skills, her pet snake that loved hanging out in his dorm room for a reason not even Merlin was likely to have known, her guardian that was, who was it again? Oh right. Lord Peverell, you know, that one really powerful guy your parents have all been talking about for the last year. Oh, and did you know he is a Parselmouth? How neat! Oh, and see that huge sixth year over there? That’s Marcus Flint, the quidditch captain, who will absolutely crush anyone who distracts Ivy Potter from quidditch, and she does get terribly distracted when someone upsets one of her friends, and we wouldn’t want to offend her, the entirety of the rest of Slytherin House (exaggeration was necessary when making a point sometimes), her guardian (and did I mention who that was?), her snake, or every Slytherin ancestor you have ever had, would we? No, I didn’t think so.
Watching the wide-eyed first years with satisfaction, and deciding that his good deed of the day was done, Kenneth made his way cheerfully past the stressed looking fifth year prefects and towards his dorm room, confident they could handle any other questions the first years might have.
September 2, 1992
Kenneth was concerned for the future of wizarding society. Was it really so hard for students to remember simple instructions that had been issued only the previous night? Stay in groups of two or more, their head of house had said. Don’t go anywhere alone. Inform the prefects or head of house directly of any detentions earned. You would think that would be a simple set of instructions to follow, but apparently not. Kenneth glared at the first year until they emitted a small squeak and ran to join their classmates.
Be a prefect, they said. It’s an honor, they said.
No. It was a way to get the best and brightest of Hogwarts to babysit the… well, those that apparently required such high levels of supervision. Which looked to be the majority of Hogwarts students, and no, not just the younger years. Fourth and fifth years could be just as bad.
No wonder Thomas never seemed the least bit jealous of the prefect badge. He was smart. He must have figured this out already.
Kenneth was offended that Thomas hadn’t bothered to inform him of these facts.
So now he was a glorified babysitter, relegated to the unenviable position of student herder. Honestly, herding kneazles would probably be easier.
The reason for this herding was something Kenneth still wasn’t sure on. He had half listened to Weasley’s insistence in the prefect meeting on the train that students shouldn’t be left alone with the new Defense professor, but he had honestly thought Weasley was just paranoid from last year’s revelation that the last person to hold that position had actually been possessed and tried to kill a student. The fact that Ivy Potter was the student and that this warning apparently came from Lord Peverell seemed to fit Kenneth’s theory.
But then their head of house had given the same instructions. Professor Snape had told the prefects very directly that no student was to be left alone with the new Professor, but he had ordered the entire house to follow a new set of guidelines, leaving out the principle factor for the changes. That had certainly caught Kenneth’s attention, and had made him wonder what exactly was going on. He had questioned his head of house, who had informed him that a word of warning had come from a concerned guardian of one of the students. Professor Snape had given him a very pointed look, and Kenneth had left nearly positive that his professor’s source was the same as Weasley. Why else say guardian instead of parent?
Kenneth was momentarily brought out of his musings in time to yell at a couple of fourth years who were absolutely not a credit to Slytherin House at the moment. How hard could this be? It was a set of simple instructions. He had never sympathized with Professor Snape as much as he did at this moment. That man was patience itself.
They had barely finished the first day of classes and already Neville was wondering why him. Why was he the one that was stuck dealing with this? Little help his roommates were at the moment. They were watching him just as intently as the new kid-that-slightly-resembled-a-puppy, and Neville wondered whether it would have been better if they had abandoned him completely rather than stay behind to bear witness to his feeble attempts at explaining the facts of life to the first year. And apparently to his roommates because they had so kindly shoved this on him, saying they didn’t know either.
Neville sighed and resigned himself to his fate.
“Alright, so, what happened exactly?” He already knew, but a delaying tactic seemed in order.
Colin Creevey, with the enthusiastic help of Ron, Seamus, and Dean, explained again what had happened. It seems Colin was a big fan of Ivy Potter, and had run up to her and asked if he could take her picture. He had also asked about her scar, and even though Neville had been sitting right there and had seen the entire thing, he still cringed at that. Ivy didn’t like people asking about her scar. The entire school was well aware of that fact at this point, except, of course, the new first years.
After Colin had asked about the scar, barely taking a breath before plunging into a detailed account of Ivy’s supposed exploits, Ivy had frantically searched around for something, and had unfortunately made eye contact with Neville, who had suddenly found himself faced with a person who had far too much energy and far too many questions. Ivy had managed to excuse herself from the situation, claiming homework or something like that (Neville had barely been able to hear her at that point), and had left Neville on his own. He had found the other Gryffindor second year boys, but they had been entirely unhelpful and had instead started asking their own questions. It was terrible.
Neville sighed again. “Alright. First of all, Ivy is really nice.” All the other boys nodded their heads.
“Second, she didn’t do any of the things in those books.”
Colin, and, surprisingly, Seamus, both looked surprised. Neville wanted to ask Seamus why he looked surprised, but decided it wasn’t worth this taking any longer than necessary.
“Okay, so then she doesn’t like anyone asking about her scar.”
“Wait, so she does have a scar? What happened to it?” How did Ron not know this? They had spent the entire last year with Ivy and… Oh forget it.
“Yes, she has a scar. No, it’s not on her forehead. No, I don’t know where it is, and no, don’t bother asking her. I don’t know if it’s shaped like a lighting bolt or not, and no, I have no idea why all the books show her looking like that.”
All four boys looked mildly disappointed. Neville felt his eye about to twitch.
“Wait, so she didn’t really do any of those things? But I thought she was really cool?”
The other three boys lit up and began explaining to Colin that Ivy was, in fact, very cool. As they regaled Colin with (only slightly exaggerated) tales of last year’s adventures (Ron having the most exciting tales to tell), Neville took the opportunity to slip out while he could do so unnoticed.
“Do you think it’ll be like this every year?”
Nevile shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe? I mean, everyone here knows, but not everybody else knows yet.”
Ivy sighed. “I guess you’re right.”
“Does it bother you? You know, people asking about the scar?”
“Kind of?” Ivy shrugged. “It shouldn’t bother me, I guess, but I just feel like when people expect to see it they already have some kind of idea about me, and if they find out I’m not like that then maybe they won’t like me.”
Neville was confused. “But everybody likes you.”
“Not everyone,” Ivy mumbled.
“Well I like you,” Neville declared, and then started blushing.
Ivy grinned. “Thanks, Neville. I like you too.” She gave him a big hug. “Thanks for talking to Colin for me. You’re the best.”
Neville grinned back. “No problem. Anytime.”
September 3, 1992
“That was the worst class ever.”
Ivy laughed at Draco. “It wasn’t that bad. I thought it was kind of fun.”
Draco looked at her like she had just declared dragons were the cuddliest creatures alive. So, basically the look he gave her at least once or twice a day. “It was a quiz on Lockhart’s…” Draco made an exaggerated motion with his hands. “Everything. Merlin, how am I supposed to know what his favorite color is? And why does it matter? And he can’t possibly have defeated a vampire by spraying it with perfume, so why should I care what his favorite one is?”
Ivy laughed at him again and Draco scowled. “You’re upset because you didn’t get a single one right,” she said, giggling.
“Like you did any better,” he muttered.
She laughed at him, again. It wasn’t funny. “Well, I don’t know how I did. He looked like he didn’t feel very good while he was reading through mine, did you notice?”
Draco hadn’t noticed, but it didn’t surprise him.
“Anyway, when he got done reading it he just handed it back to me and said it looked fine. He didn’t mark it at all.”
“Wait, I want to see. What did you put?”
Ivy pulled the parchment out of her bag and handed it to him, and Draco began skimming over it as quickly as he could. “You put a Nundu as his favorite animal,” he said. “Why on earth would you think that?”
Ivy shrugged. “Well he seems to like dangerous creatures, and those are kind of dangerous, aren’t they?”
Draco would have used a slightly different description than that, but okay.
“So I figured that was a pretty safe bet.”
Again, Draco would have used something other than “safe” to describe a Nundu, even in such a context as this.
He stopped when he got to one particular line. “You compared him to an Erkling?”
“What? Where?”
Draco pointed out the question in answer. The answer in question. The… oh whatever.
“Here. See? The question was ‘What sort of creature could Gilderoy Lockhart best be compared to?’ and you put Erkling.”
Ivy nodded. “Oh, yeah. Someone mentioned something about him liking to sing.”
“That’s a terrible comparison to make.”
Ivy shrugged. “It’s not like I read the books.”
“Then how did you manage to get a passing grade on Lockhart’s quiz?”
“Professor Lockhart,” Granger said, suddenly appearing between the two. “Did you not do so well on the quiz?” she asked, looking at Draco who just scowled.
“Lockhart didn’t exactly grade mine,” Ivy explained, “but Draco didn’t get any right.”
“Didn’t you read the books?” Granger asked.
“No,” Ivy and Draco said together. Granger looked scandalized and Draco allowed himself a smirk, positive that if he had read the books he would have beaten Granger’s likely perfect score for sure.
September 5, 1992
§Why can’t I sstay in the ssmelly room with the boyss?§
Ivy rolled her eyes. Tiger was not a morning snake, unless it was for a good cause like chicken, and he had been complaining nonstop.
§Or the nisse girlss who rub my sscaless and tell me nisse thingss.§
§You can go to Trascey later,§ Ivy hissed. §We’re going to go find another ssnake.§
§Why do you need another ssnake? I’m the only ssnake you will ever need.§
Ivy tried not to laugh at Tiger’s affronted tone. She held out until he started pouting as only a snake can and mumbling about how he was surely prettier than any other snake and all the snakes in the portraits said so. She burst out laughing and received a few strange looks from the few other students in the hall, who were no doubt wondering why she was laughing so suddenly to herself.
Thomas pushed his eggs around on his plate. Somehow he had gotten roped into showing up at a quidditch practice at an hour no sane person should be awake, which explained why both Marcus and Wood were there. He had had no issue with the whole “buddy system” thing Slytherin had going on, and it hadn’t taken long to sort out the reason for it. So he had had no issue, until today. Today, for some unknown reason that made no sense whichever way he looked at it, he was somehow responsible for Ivy until lunchtime. He was fairly certain he had heard something about “babysitting” and “demon child,” from Kenneth, but it was early and he had barely been paying attention. Something about Marcus and quidditch and Malfoy and something that he apparently forgot to tell Kenneth that was now being held against him. So now he was responsible for being Ivy’s buddy for the next several hours. Maybe he could convince her to study in the library. He and Percy had found some interesting looking books there already this term.
Then again…
Maybe she’d be interested in Arithmancy. Yes. That was a great plan. Nothing dangerous ever happened in that class. He turned to Ivy to suggest just that but immediately panicked. She was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is your brother?”
Fred looked skeptically at Harrington, who looked rather panicked at the moment. Surely there was nothing he needed with Percy that called for that level of agitation.
“Library, probably. Why?”
“I already checked there and he’s not there and I need to find him.”
“Yeah, we got that,” George chimed in. “Why do you need to find Percy?”
“I lost her,” Harrington cried out. Looks like Percy was capable of driving even Slytherins crazy.
“Lost who?”
“IVY!”
Fred’s mouth formed a small “o” and he shared a glance and a nod with George.
“Give us just a second,” George said, before darting around the corner.
Fred smiled serenely at Harrington, who did not appear at all comforted.
A moment later George reappeared. “She’s in the girl’s bathroom on the second floor.”
Harrington glanced between the two of them before turning around and taking off running.
“Do you think he’s alright?”
“He’s been hanging around Percy. What do you think?”
“Should we help him?”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Although he did seem concerned about Ivy.”
“You don’t suppose she got herself into sometime of trouble, do you?”
The twins exchanged another glance. It was five days into the school year, so yes, it was entirely possibly, nay, likely, that Ivy was in some kind of trouble.
“We’d better go…”
“Right behind you.”
Thomas ignored the confused looks he received as he dashed down the hall and into Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. Somehow he had the feeling that this was not going to bode well for him.
As he burst through the door he was relieved to see Ivy standing there, no destruction or blood in sight. Just then he heard a giggle behind him. He whirled around and came face to face with the bathroom’s resident ghost.
“You can come back any time, Ivy Potter, if you’re always going to bring me cute boys,” the ghost said.
Thomas did his best to not blush at being flirted with by a ghost, because that was weird, and instead gave a half smile and turned back to Ivy who looked entirely too amused and not at all guilty for the stress she had caused him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “We were supposed to stay together this morning.”
“Sorry,” she said, having the decency to look a little guilty at that. “I’m just going to the Chamber of Secrets.”
Had Thomas been stressed? No. That was nothing. This, on the other hand…
“I’m sorry, you what?”
“I’m going to the Chamber of Secrets,” she said again, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Thomas was regretting not trying harder to find Percy so he could drag him into this mess.
Thomas was now convinced he had never experienced shock of any kind in his life. He didn’t even know where to start. They were standing in the Chamber of Secrets, which they had gotten to by sliding down something covered in something else that he didn’t care to think much on. A slide that was in a girls’ bathroom, and was opened in Parseltongue, which evidently Ivy Potter could speak, because the universe hated him apparently.
“Okay, this has been nice…” No, it had most certainly not. “…but I think it’s time to go now. You know, homework and such.”
“We can’t go yet, silly,” Ivy said, her cheerfulness a stark contrast to the doom and gloom feeling of this secret underground chamber that had been so appropriately named. “We haven’t found the basilisk yet.”
The next several moments were a blur. He was fairly certain he had heard some screaming, but he wasn’t entirely sure where it had come from. There wasn’t someone else down here with them, was there? At some point Ivy had told him to close his eyes, and he had decided that death by basilisk wasn’t the worst way to go. At least it wasn’t completely lame. There had been a lot of hissing and he counted down the seconds until his inevitable death, before hearing something he vaguely recognized as his name.
“Thomas,” the voice said. “You can open your eyes now.”
He gingerly opened one eye, and was immediately faced with a sight he hoped to never see again, no matter whether he died in the next four seconds or a century from now, which honestly wasn’t likely, but he had nothing to lose at this point. There was Ivy, petting a snake that made other snakes look like wimpy little pieces of floss. Said snake was staring at him, but he wasn’t dead yet, so he ventured another eye open.
“Is that…”
“This is Hilda.”
“You named it?”
“Of course not, silly. She’s much older than either of us. I believe Salazar Slytherin named her, and he’s been dead for ages.”
Well, it’s not like Thomas had anything to refute that statement with. “And I’m not dead because…” Not that he was complaining, of course.
“I asked her if she could close her eyes so it didn’t hurt you.”
“Oh.” Thomas was at a loss for words. How did one respond to something like that? “What about you?”
“Oh, she won’t hurt me. Besides, the eyes don’t work on Parselmouths.”
“That’s nice.”
“Did you know that when Voldemort…”
He was fairly confident he hid his flinch well enough.
“…went here he got control of Hilda? But he’s dead now so she’s not under his control anymore.”
So much to unpack there. “The Dark Lord went here?”
“Yep! Of course, he had a normal name and not his made up one yet.”
Thomas decided he didn’t need to know, didn’t want to know, and mostly just wanted out, but he couldn’t help but ask one last question. “How do you know all this?”
“Uncle Henry told me,” was her all too happy reply.
Thomas’s life expectancy was rapidly falling, even without the inevitable death-by-basilisk he had been envisioning moments ago. At this rate he was going to be lucky to graduate.
“You know,” he said, not sure how to put this, “you should maybe not tell anyone about the Chamber. Or the basilisk. Or that you’re a parselmouth.”
“Wait, doesn’t everyone already know?”
He wasn’t sure to which part she was referring exactly, but he assured her that no, it was not common knowledge.
Ivy frowned. “But how else did they think I talk to Tiger?”
“Not everyone can speak to their pets, you know.”
“Uncle Henry talks to Hedwig all the time.”
“That’s his owl, right?”
Ivy nodded. He had no explanation to give her.
“Just, maybe don’t mention it to anyone just yet, alright? Some people have a tendency to freak out over things like that.”
“Really? When we were at the Malfoys’ party and everyone found out Henry was a parselmouth they all thought it was really cool.”
“Yes, well, not everyone thinks that, and some people might not be very nice about it if they found out.”
How do you explain to one of the nicest people (encounters with idiots excepted) in Hogwarts that a lot of people were adamantly opposed to your favorite person in the world because of an ability most considered dark, and that that same level of loathing might easily be applied to you should the ability be discovered?
Ivy continued frowning. “And you’re sure everyone doesn’t already know?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Pretty sure,” he managed to get out.
Well, at least she seemed more concerned that everyone else had seemed to miss something she had apparently not actually been trying to hide up to this point, rather than the prospect that some people might react poorly should they actually find out. And honestly it did not fill Thomas with confidence that she had managed to keep something like this a secret entirely on accident. What else had he missed? Well, there was that giant basilisk named Hilda that had either been adopted by Ivy or had adopted her (it was hard to tell) for one thing.
§Sso what did you think?§
§Sshe wass magnifissent,§ Tiger said. §Our new mother ssnake is lovely.§
§Iss that why sshe called us hatchlingss?§ Ivy asked.
§Sshe iss very old,§ Tiger said by way of reply. §Sshe can teach uss how to be good ssnakess.§
Ivy hmmed. §Do you think I sshould keep all thiss a ssecret?§
Tiger couldn’t exactly scoff, but she was pretty sure that’s the type of response he was giving. §Of coursse,§ he said. §We jusst found her and I don’t want to sshare.§
Ivy laughed. §Of coursse you don’t,§ she teased. §But I meant about me being able to sspeak to you.§
§Why sshould it matter what thosse people think? If they are mean to you I can jusst eat them.§
§You can’t eat people jusst becausse they are mean,§ Ivy said, rolling her eyes.
Tiger muttered something about asking mother if he could and just try to stop him, and then demanded to be taken back to the chicken room. Ivy rolled her eyes again and then complied, taking the now content snake to the Great Hall for lunch.
§I think we forgot Thomass again,§ she said.
§I am ssure he will be fine,§ Tiger replied. §He probably needss more ssleep, alwayss sso sstressed. I’ll help him ssleep tonight.§
Ivy patted Tiger on his head in appreciation for his thoughtful gesture.
§Now no more delayss,§ he said. §It’ss chicken time.§
When Thomas awoke in the middle of the night with a snake on his chest he was grateful he had had the foresight to place silencing charms around his bed. His reputation did not need the hit that waking the entire Slytherin House with his high-pitched screams would have brought. Of course, that gratitude didn’t come until the screams stopped, and twenty minutes after he awoke he realized it was just Tiger, and so was finally able to move past the terror and onto the feeling of immense gratitude that he decided to focus on for the remainder of the night.
The next morning when Kenneth tired to wake him he cursed in every language he knew, and then grimaced as he set about undoing the damage he had accidentally caused on a less-than-happy Kenneth Burke. To be fair, he wasn’t much of a morning person.